


we're getting into hot water here (phil coulson tests his heroic willpower)

by notcaycepollard



Series: retreat fics [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, The Retreat aka sex cabin, god bless the sex cabin, readers asked, so I wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 08:30:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4822238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like they're playing some kind of ridiculous game of chicken here, staring each other down until someone cracks and starts kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're getting into hot water here (phil coulson tests his heroic willpower)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts), [DesertDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertDragon/gifts).



> Persiflage and DesertDragon asked for Coulson POV of 'take a cold shower'. So, here is that POV.
> 
> there's more pining. there always seems to be when it's Coulson POV. he's just SO PINING.

1.

Coulson likes cooking. He really likes cooking for Skye. He especially likes cooking for Skye at the Retreat. She sits back in a kitchen chair, watches him work, and she's not as subtle as she thinks. He's seen the faces she makes. It gives him a bit of a thrill, he has to admit (he might be an old man, an old man with one hand and a broken organization and some really terrible lack of compartmentalization going on with a fellow agent, but when Skye looks at him like that, well.) So he puts on the radio, sings along, lets himself steal little glances at her, and it feels nice. It feels like it could be a date.

It's not a  _date_ , of course, it's Caterpillar missions, and they're only using the Retreat for practical reasons. He remembers that every time he stretches out on the couch, winces at the way the lumps always seem to gravitate to the worst spots. Building the Nest can't come soon enough. (Of course he gives Skye the bed. He's not a  _jerk_.)

Still. _Still_. When he dishes up their risotto, and Skye pours them both a wine in the chipped old water glasses of the Retreat, and he sits down at the table with her, shares the meal in companionable conversation, it's almost too perfect. There's a sunset outside and the fire going and Skye's smile and her face and the way she unconsciously sways toward him so warm and inviting. It's _lovely_. He lets himself enjoy the quiet domesticity of it all, drinks a little more wine than he should, holds himself back from leaning over and brushing a kiss to Skye's cheek as if it's the thousandth time he's done it.

"Thanks for dinner," Skye says, looking more relaxed than he's seen her in months, and Coulson wishes he could give this to her all the time. "I'm gonna take a shower, okay?"

"Sure," he says, because "alternatively, you could sit in my lap and drink some more wine with me and then we could make out a lot" is a sentence he can still swallow down, although it's getting harder.

He hears the water turn on, decides to distract himself by getting the kitchen clean and tidy. He stacks up the plates, puts the plug in the sink, turns on the tap and squirts in some dish soap.

Skye screams.

He doesn't even realize he's grabbed his gun and slammed open the door until he catches a glimpse of her, naked and dripping wet. She jumps back behind the shower curtain, looking startled. "I'm fine," she tells him, "the water ran cold," and Coulson blinks, blushes, because of course it's just the  _water_ , and he burst in on Skye  _naked and showering_.

"Right," he stammers, "right, sorry, I started washing up, I forgot that running the hot tap would... sorry." He looks up, makes eye contact, and oh, that was a terrible idea, because Skye's got suds running down the side of her face, and Coulson just  _wants_ , so badly, to strip off and step in with her, massage his fingers into her scalp, wash the shampoo out of her hair as gently and tenderly as he can.

"Coulson," she says, twitching the curtain, and he catches himself, stammers out another apology, backs out and closes the door. He puts down his gun on the kitchen table, sits down heavily, tries to gather his thoughts.

They don't talk about it, later. That's fine. Coulson can pretend it never happened. It's just part of sharing a safe house with someone.

 

2.

Coulson doesn't know when he stopped trying to pretend in front of Skye that he was the cool, competent Agent Agent every moment of the day. She's seen him ridden with manic insomnia, carving alien symbols into walls. It seems a bit ridiculous to make sure he's wearing a suit when they're just eating breakfast at the Retreat. So he lets himself sleep a little later, roll from the couch and stagger into the kitchen in his pajamas, and it's worth it when Skye joins him with damp hair and a morning-fresh face and bare feet.

"Hey, Director. Want coffee?" she asks, and her voice is so soft and tender, he imagines just sliding an arm around her waist and greeting her with a gentle good morning kiss.

"God, yes," he says instead, rubs his face, tries to wake up a little more, because what a  _dream_. Skye turns on the machine, fiddles around, offers to make breakfast, and he's awake enough that he knows what  _that_ means.

She totally used up all the hot water.

He eats the pancakes she makes anyway, and they're sweet and fluffy, dripping with syrup and butter. Skye's quiet, over breakfast, not in a bad way - she knows, by now, that he needs two coffees before he's awake enough to keep a conversation going, so she just passes him a fresh mug, licks syrup off her fingers in a way that's too gorgeous to look at. None of this is helping his feelings about domesticity, but it's a familiar ache, wanting something he can't have, and he almost enjoys pressing at the bruise.

He shaves at the kitchen bench, because cold water shaving is awful, and Skye's so startled by it he considers shifting, because he really doesn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Then he catches a glimpse of her face in his pocket mirror, and this isn't just the slightly unsubtle attracted face Skye's made before. This is Skye watching him hungrily, her gaze hot and longing. It sets something burning in him, because Skye wouldn't  _look_ like that if she didn't want to do something with it, would she?

He teases her about it, watches her reaction, and the way she jumps and blushes confirms it all. Coulson's _so glad_ he's not just pining after her irretrievably.

"How'd I do?" he asks her, just because he wants to see Skye look at him again. He doesn't expect her to press her fingers against his face, trace up his jaw, and he shivers at her touch, closes his eyes, imagines her leaning in.

Instead she wipes shaving cream on his nose, laughs like bells, and he takes a long, long cold shower.

 

3.

Coulson loves to watch Skye go through her tai chi practice, kind of loves it too much, especially when he can tell she's settling into vibrations too. He decides he'll go for a run. That seems like a healthy decision. Healthier than sitting and watching Skye for the next hour, which is what he wants to do.

When he gets back, he's rewarded with Skye just  _staring_ , and it's enough to make him reckless. He pulls off his shirt, towels off his face, lets her take in his shoulders and chest. He works out. He knows it. Skye looks like she just wants to eat him, so he throws his shirt at her, revels in her confused, startled outrage as he claims the shower. This kind of flirting is _much_ more fun. _  
_

He uses all the hot water, because he's jerking off just thinking about Skye's expression when she saw him all sweaty and shirtless, and he only feels a little bit bad. Skye looks accusing, but god, it's so much fun to wind her up.

"You'll just have to take a cold shower," he suggests, because he's more than a little bit cheeky, and what can he say, he wants Skye to _know_ he knows she's looking.

He should have known Skye would get her revenge. When she appears in that tiny white bikini, his brain pretty much shuts down. 

"Want to join me?" she asks, teasingly innocent, and he falls back on what seems safest.

"Seems pretty cold out there," he tells her, and she shrugs, runs down and throws herself in, because Skye's obviously a daredevil, or just really committed to this plan (what is this plan? Taunt Coulson with a bikini? _It's working_.) He can't help but laugh.

She gets out of the water in what Coulson feels is basically slow motion, and it's like they're playing some kind of ridiculous game of chicken here, staring each other down until someone cracks and starts kissing. Then she's dripping water on him, standing way too close, and Coulson could just grab her, haul her in. He complains, instead, tries to cover his absolute and blinding thing he has for her with Director-of-SHIELD tetchiness. She just stretches out on the deck chair, relaxes into the heat of the sunshine, and  _oh god. Skye._ For  _fucks sake._

"You could _put some clothes on_ ," he says, trying not to sound desperate, and she just gives him a gloriously flirtatious arched eyebrow. Fuck it. He eyes her body the way he wants to, thanking everything he has that he's been trained for twenty years in maintaining some level of secret agent chill, and then she's asking for his shirt. 

"My actual shirt," he clarifies, and she grins, because of course Skye wants him undressing in front of her. Fine. Fine. If that's how she wants to play it. He unbuttons it slowly, hands it over, and fuck, the way she snuggles into it, the way it just frames her almost-naked body (as if she's gotten out of bed and put on his shirt, he tries not to think) is a terrible, wonderful thing.

 

4.

It feels deeply unfair, Coulson thinks, that the first time he's seeing Skye by candlelight, he can't enjoy it because they're both filthy, cold to the bone and soaked through. He wonders if maybe he did something wrong in his previous life (except that was, he thinks, until he was like forty eight, and he can write a damn  _list_ of all the things he did wrong, so.)

He pokes around the cabin, because it seems like the kind of place to have it, and it's barely even a decision, when he finds it. Skye needs to get clean and warm up. He's found a tub. Of course he's going to prepare her a hot bath.

"Director, don't be stupid," Skye says when he's about to leave her to it, though, and that's a harder decision.

"I've got to get this dirt off me too," he prevaricates, spends ten minutes washing as thoroughly as he can and deep breathing in the bathroom. 

He clears his throat when he comes back in, stands by the fire and tries very hard not to look at Skye, and she just splashes in the water, tells him matter-of-factly not to preserve her modesty. He looks, and now he thinks it's not so unfair after all, because in the dim light of the candles and the fire, Skye is sleek and luminous, her knees and shoulders rising from the dark water.

"Want to wash my back?" she asks, and she's making this harder, because if he kneels down and touches her right now, it's a  _thing_. 

He does it anyway, works conditioner into her hair, massages her neck and shoulders, and god he loves this, loves caring for her with cooking and touch and comfort. He wants to do this forever.

"You're missing out if you don't take a bath," Skye murmurs sleepily, smirks when he tells her there's no room for the both of them. She clearly thinks it's still the flirting-chicken game they've been playing for so long, asks teasingly whether he'd join her.

"Yes," he breathes, and it's just the simple, dreamy easiness of the bathwater and the fire and the candles that makes him say, it, finally. He's tried heroic willpower, but there are _limits_. Skye arches back to look at him, and now that he's made his move, he just  _looks_ , lets her see how much he wants her.  


It's inevitable and glorious when she gets him into the bath, kisses him over the edge of the tub, strokes him until he's struggling to hold back, and when Skye climbs back into the water, straddles his lap and fucks down on him in one long, tight squeeze, Coulson wonders why on earth he tried to be heroic in the first place.

 

5.

Coulson could quit being the Director of SHIELD. He could quit, and buy a cabin by a lake, and just spend the rest of his life waking up with Skye curled up against him or draped over him or marching her fingers down his ribs like he should be awake already. He's thinking about this a lot, lately.

Skye presses her hand against his stomach, slides it down to grab his cock, and he moans into it, considers very hard just canceling all of his meetings. He probably can't, unless he quits being the Director of SHIELD, and let's face it, he's not a quitter.

He's  _really_ not a quitter, actually, which is why when the shower turns cold on them he just turns it off, fucks Skye right through it until she's clutching at him and gasping into his mouth.

Coulson might have heroic willpower, though, but it doesn't extend to Skye standing by the window toweling her hair out in clear morning sunlight. To hell with the meetings; this might be the last chance they get for _months_. He pushes her back down onto the bed, drops to his knees and presses his mouth to her clit, and god, he's glad they're keeping the Retreat.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr if you want: notcaycepollard.tumblr.com


End file.
